I am reading this fascinating book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, who used to be a professor in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. The book is a compilation of his thoughts and experiences he delivered as a last lecture to the students after he found out that he had a terminal pancreatic cancer with only few months to live. It describes many of his experiences in life – from childhood to the end. I highly recommend this book for summer reading.
One of the interesting incidents he describes occurred during their family visit to Disney World when he was a 12 year old. In that he and his sister buy a salt and pepper shaker for $10 for their father with all of their pocket money. However, before they can give it to him he drops it on the ground and breaks it. Very disappointed, they go back to the store with little or no hope of getting a replacement. To their amazement and disbelief, however, the store employee happily gives them the replacement without any charge even though he explains that it was all his fault and Disney had nothing to do with it.
When his father hears the story he becomes a devoted fan of Disney. He continues to take not only his kids, but people from his volunteer group to Disneyland for many years, spending approximately $100,000 according to his estimate.
There are two important lessons to be learned for small business owners from this incident. First has to do with customer service and the other with employees.
Customer Service
The service Disney provided to the author and his family was beyond their expectations. The author had no hope of getting a replacement, but he still went back to the store with a last bit of hope. Can you imagine the joy and relief he would have experienced when getting the replacement? The store employees at Disney did not worry about $10 at the time. They were interested in giving the best experience and time to them, which is what Disney stands for.
If you are small business owner your goal should be to get customer for life even if it means forgoing one-time profit. The other interesting lesson is about providing customer service is that they go beyond the expectations of their customers. It’s only when you delight your customers with something unexpected that you can build a life-long relationship with your customers.
Employees
The employees at the Disney store did not have to ask for permission from their manager to give the replacement. They knew what Disney stood for (kid friendly place) and what was expected of them to make sure the theme park visitors had a great time they would remember for years to come. The Disney management trusted their employees to do the right thing without having to remind them every day.
When you are running a small business you have to trust your employees to do the right thing. You are not going to be able to take care of every small item yourself all the time. That means describing to them what the business stands for, giving them high-level guidelines and trusting them to make the right decisions based on those guidelines.
Have you read the book? What is your favorite story? What are the other lessons for small business owners from the book?
